


Stay Alive

by ArgoRunning



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bipolar Dean, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Coming Out, Depressed Castiel, Depressed Dean, Emotionally Hurt Castiel, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Family Issues, Family Secrets, Gay Sex, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Introvert Castiel, LGBT, M/M, Schizophrenic Castiel, Sexual Tension, Suicidal Castiel, Suicidal Thoughts, Virgin Castiel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-13 08:59:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11756424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgoRunning/pseuds/ArgoRunning
Summary: Castiel Novak had the same goal every year.  To keep following the rule that hadn't let him down yet. His rule, you ask? Simple. Stay alive. "As long your heart beats Castiel, you'll be fine." His mother used to tell him.He had no problem following that seemingly easy rule. He never did anything that would cause someone to give him a second glance, he spoke only when spoken to and never ventured out of his lane, he simply existed.But Dean Winchester decided to crash his Baby straight into Castiel's lane. Maybe his rule was overrated anyways.Add the fact that Castiel is schizophrenic, Dean has about million personal problems and you have a rollercoaster of events.





	Stay Alive

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter shifts between both Dean and Castiel's day. This chapter is really just a set up so they will not meet till chapter 2!

 

 **Chapter 1: Swimming While Drowning**  

* * *

Heartbeats, blood, a flash of light, a dark mysterious silhouette. He woke up in a pool of sweat, hair sticking to his neck and clothes drenched, his brain pounding against his skull. He read the clock at his bedside: 3:28 am. He wouldn't need to be awake for another few hours but he knew that trying to go back to sleep would just bring back the horrifying nightmare he was trying to escape. He has had the same dream for a month now. It always started the same way; a faceless guy tied to a chair heart beating so fast it seemed his body couldn't keep up with it. Next a gruesome scene straight from hell, blood crept into the cracks of the wood-lined floor and screams filled the open-air.

 Suddenly a bright light, the mood would shift from grim to content, as if reminiscing about a past lover, joyful but also bringing along a sense of sadness with it. The light which had a golden green hue to it, was always so vivid, he could almost feel the soft warm rays hit his skin while he slept. Seconds later a dark outline would appear turning the comfortable warm into a harsh, blinding blue light as if he had just looked straight into the sun. With that, he would wake up, welcomed by an atrocious headache and only four hours of sleep.

He grabbed at his bed sheets as he pulled himself up and out of bed, making his way down the creaky hallway to the bathroom. He stopped at Sam's door, careful not to make too much noise and stir his younger brother. He was sleeping soundly with the covers pulled up to his chest, exposing his toes. Sam always said he liked sleeping that way, but Dean also knew that if he tried to cover his whole body with the old blanket it would disappoint the blanket was far too small. Dean drew in a deep breath and mentally added that to his 'save for' list.

He spent the rest of the morning curled up on their faded rough couch with his favorite book. It was always on his father's bookshelf when he was growing up until one day he was tall enough to reach it and he instantly fell in love. It had a thick deep red binding, OFF THE DEEP END, it read in large gold letters. It was printed in 1928, the yellowed papers clinged to the spine for dear life. The front and back of the book had no writing on them but instead, doodles in blue and a red that matched the spine. Men and woman both seated and standing on a crowded train, an older man scrolling through books on a stand off the road, two men walking in a hurry, their dapper hats and monocles seeming to move on the page, woman all enjoying a drink outside of a cafe in their high heels and short hair of the 20's. He always had a weird fascination with that time period. He checked the time on the aged oven: 6:32. He needed to wake up his brother and get them both dressed if he had any hope of making it to school on time. He hesitated as he closed the book, did he really have to go to school? He finally closed the book after a minute, Sam would be livid if he failed to wake him up, again.

***

Castiel made it to first period in just the nick of time. It earned him a glare from his math teacher who seemed to hate all her students who weren't the offspring of rich business men and woman. Castiel was the furthest thing from rich and business so he kept his head down and stayed quiet. Calculus was a pain but it also gave him the credits he needed if he ever wanted to get into college. That, in itself, was a far-away goal but Castiel decided it was best to not demolish his dreams just in case an opportunity, by some miracle, was to present itself.

 So he sat quietly and listened to the degrading sound of the teacher, hoping that one of the rich kids asked his question so he could get an answer without having to raise his hand and get a look of disappointment from up front. "Deal with it" he thought to himself as he started taking notes. Three hours later, he found himself leaving his English class and walking towards the library. He made sure to take the left stairs up in an attempt to avoid the athletic boys in case they decided they needed a punching bag that day. 

Five minutes later and he found himself in the back of the library, tucked neatly between an aisle and the large plastic greenery that dotted the library of his new school. He moved here three months ago and already he knew where he'd be the next two years of high school:the school library and the woods behind his house. The library was a large tall walled room on the second floor of his new small high school. Dust collected every edge of every book and table. The forest, on the other hand, were five miles of Northern Kansas trees and ponds filled with birds ready to leave the cold weather. No one ever went there: it was too wild and overgrown for anyone with a liking for sidewalks to enjoy. Any time he needed a break from reality he went there and sat next to the water, watching the birds strategically bend their legs in order to catch the fish swimming below. He would just sit there and sketch the little adventures going on before his very eyes onto paper. 

He grabbed his journal and a black pen and set them down in front of himself. He flipped to the first blank page he could find and began to draw. He'd been seeing bees around a lot more the past few weeks and figured he would at least try to capture one on paper. It was weird seeing a bee at random times, sometimes he'd be sitting in class and he'd look down and see one crawling across his desk and other times it would be sitting on the tip of his teachers nose and he would try to hold back his laughter, waiting for it to sting the boring math teacher and hear the outburst of pain and surprise. But then the insect would disappear before Castiel had the chance to see if anyone else had seen it. By the end of the hour, he had a full drawing of the bee he'd seen so many times before. The wings looked semi-translucent on the paper, and Castiel was proud he achieved that effect with only a pencil and eraser. The body was covered in intriguing designs instead of stripes and hair--webs of shiny gray weaving together, stretching across the tiny insect, each string the thickness of a single strand of hair. He closed his book with a sigh a few hours before he could go back to the woods.

***

Dean tapped his pencil against his desk.

Repeatedly, the steady beat was only heard by him in the back of the classroom. His vision blurred as he stared at the broken yellow pencil, bite marks scattered along it. It was 6th period now and the day was drawing to a slow end. The teacher was upfront, explaining yet another boring history lesson. Dean actually enjoyed history: you get to judge and laugh at all the mistakes the long since dead people made. Like in mid-July of 1804, when Aaron Burr thought it would be a good idea to shoot Alexander Hamilton. Or how Robert Hooke's work was forgotten because he pissed off Isaac Newton. His thoughts trailed off as he looked out the window, across the street from Moore High School was a cemetery. Why anyone would build a school next to a cemetery was far beyond his understanding. He scanned over the tombstones and his eyes landed on the largest tombstone there, standing like a wall in the center of the open field. He'd walked through it enough times to know what was written on the cold hard stone,

 To

the memory of

the magic initials

C. E. M.

"Not ruled by fear or desire

And you could believe what he said."'

He shuddered as he recalled the oddly familiar words. Not ruled by fear or desire. And you could believe what he said. He always wondered what those words meant, who was he? What fears and desires was he not ruled by? And what did he have to say? What was so magical about the initials?Deans thought were always littered with these questions. He even tried to find the person online searching every possible thing, from the initials to the quote, to the name of the cemetery, to Lawrence, Kansas.

Why didn't it have the person's full name? Why just the initials C.E.M.? If he was to die tomorrow, he would want to have Dean Winchester in the coolest damn font they offered. That's for sure. 6th period ended with the hollowed out sound of the school bell ringing through the hallways. It was still pretty early in the day, so no one would be at the forest once he and Sammy got home. He grabbed his worn down backpack and made his way to Sam's classroom. The school was pretty much just copy and paste, the hallways all looked the same; you only knew where you were by the numbers plastered next to the doors. He made his way from the 400's to where Sam's last classroom was in the 200's. He found his little brother standing next to the classroom door talking to a girl. Dean cleared his throat as he approached, 

"Ready to go?" Dean said.

 "Yeah I'm all set," the blonde girl smiled from where she was standing, "Bye Sam." 

"Bye Jess," Sam said shyly as he turned around and made his way down the hallway with Dean.

"So whos the chick?" Dean asked nudging his brother against the lockers as they walked.

"She's in my science class. We were partners for a physics lab."

"Mhm, lab partners. Right," Dean teased stretching out the last word more than necessary. Sam flashed him his bitch face.

"You're actually into her?" Dean asked.

"Yeah, she's pretty cool...just don't say anything, okay?" Sam pleaded.

"Okay, okay my lips are sealed just don't go around making out with her"

"Dean!" Sam scolded and started walking faster.

Dean chuckled as he jogged to catch up with his little pain in the ass brother. He was only 14 and his stride was already longer than Dean's; he wondered how tall he'd be in a few years time. They drove back to their house in comfortable silence, rock music playing in Dean's loved car. He gripped the steering wheel a little tighter as they passed the cemetery. 

"You alright?" 

Sam asked from the passenger seat obviously noticing Deans demeanor.

 "Yeah, um, I'm going to take a quick walk in the forest. Mind staying home alone?" He asked, trying to get the attention off himself.

 "I'm not a baby, I can handle being home alone for a few hours" Sam answered. 

"I won't take that long." He said pulling into their- or rather Bobby's- driveway. 

Sam knew Dean would probably take over an hour to get home, doing God knows what in the forest. He got out the car and tossed his little brother the keys and left only after reminding him to lock to doors and not open them unless it's him or Bobby.

Dean walked the trail that led to the pond, pieces of gravel got pushed aside by his steps, causing them to roll down into the creek that ran on the right side of the trail. He walked for 10 minutes before there was a small opening to his left, the trail continued down but was hidden by the thick branches. He pushed the branches aside as he made his way down the steep slope, there up ahead, was the pond. A large concrete tunnel overlooked the water, it was covered in graffiti, all in different stages of fading away. He made the short walk over to the tunnel, setting his backpack down and seating on the edge of the tunnel. He looked down at the water below him: tiny fish swam between large boulders, ducks paddled away as there younger ones followed them in a long moving line.

 He grabbed his backpack and shoveled through it until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a bottle of whiskey, a pack of cigarettes, and a lighter. He pulled the cigarette between his lips and lit it, making sure to block out the wind with his hand. The wind was picking up and the clouds were thick and dark overhead threatening to open up the sky and soak the woods. He took a few swigs of the bottle before putting the cigarette between his lips once again, and took a deep draw. 

He leaned back against the concrete, looking up at the sky, releasing a breath he didn't even realize he was holding. He felt his shoulders relaxing with the familiar feeling of thick smoke being inhaled and exhaled, the smell of nicotine clouding all around him as he laid there. It wasn't a good smell by any standard, but he had gotten used to it. Sometimes he smoked to clear his mind, let his thoughts leave just like the smoke drifting away. Sometimes he smoked to do the opposite, he would think until the smoke reached the tops of the tall trees around him, anchored to reality by the feeling of the cigarette dangling from his lips. Today was the first one, a not thinking day.

***

Castiel ran home as soon as the bus stopped, sprinting all the way to his house. "Mom? You home?" He shouted. He got no reply. "Shocker" he whispered to himself. He made his way to the kitchen grabbing a leftover sandwich from the rusted fridge. He checked the time, the bus had gotten to school a bit earlier, avoiding the usual work traffic. He guessed he could spend some time in the forest before it got too dark. 

He made sure to leave the keys under the rug in case, by some miracle, his mom would be home by the time he came back. He weaved through thick Kansas forest until he finally found himself at a break in the trees, tall grass covering a steep hill that overlooked the pond. He made his way down to the water's edge until he was just a foot away. The grass now evening out to just a few inches underneath him. He looked out onto the pond, ducklings were following their mother around, turtles were zigzagging through the water only their shells being seen. 

He enjoyed the silence the place provided. A silence he couldn't seem to find anywhere else these days. His chest still felt heavy though, you see Castiel's problem was that he always felt uneasy, surrounded. Even here tucked beneath tall grass and the water he felt surrounded. Backed up into a corner. His head flashed with violent memories at the thought. He sat there, knees pulled up to his chest, rocking back and forth, quietly watching the glittering pond until his mind cleared from those horrible memories.

All the sudden he could hear a loud buzzing sound. He scanned the pond, nothing.He turned around looking through the grass, he squinted, trying to get a better look of what it could be. Out in the distance, a cloud of bees were getting closer and closer. Their consistent buzzing swallowing all other sounds in the forest, yet the ducks were still swimming happily after their mother and the turtles were now sun bathing atop the rocks.

 Castiel covered his ears in an attempt to stop the persistent sound that was only getting louder. Stray bees were now reaching him, one landed on his leg and he saw that it was the same one he would see in class, the one he drew. It quickly flew away, now joining the crowd of bees just feet away from him. This was different than most times, usually, it was just that one bee and t made him feel not alone and sometimes even laugh, but this, this was different. This was horrifying. Thousands of bees were swarming him, angry and painfully stinging him. The pain grew from the initial sting on his leg to his arms, to his chest and even his face. Soon he was swatting at them desperately trying to defend himself, till his arms were too hurt to lift so he did the only thing he knew how to do, run. He stumbled into the water running as fast as his aching legs let him. He knew he couldn't swim but all rational thoughts left him when he was in so much pain. He just wanted it to end. That was the last thought he had before water covered the top of his head and all he could hear was the muffled sound of the bees above the water. Then everything went black.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed the first chapter! This is my first fanfiction and I really do hope y'all will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it! Let me know what you think?


End file.
